from the google reader

How Henry James would have hated hypertext, says Matt Christie. But 'he might have liked Hegel'. (now where did that bit go I wonder?)

Stephen Mitchelmore links to an interview over at the Harper Collins poetry weblog, Cruelest Month, with Gabriel Josipovici about his new novel and his lack of affection for historical novels: 'I don't believe in them or think they are a viable road for the modern writer to go down.'

I told everyone at the Library Uncon that Stephen Mitchelmore was good - I don't know if this is, but it certainly has curiosity value and I thank him for the link.

And Simon Sellars has noticed that Baudrillard died - but did anyone else in Oz blogging?

This probably is hard to swallow, but apparently AWP was top of the pops on Technorati t'other day. Link via Laurel Snyder, poet (and occasional prose-writer) of Jewishy-Irishy.

Lastly:
Tsk, not even in a handbag.

Comments

[GoAwayPlease]

"She is one of my favourite authors, so I recognised her name straight away, and the writing is very much in her style" ... oh thanks for the laugh.

Exhausted employee obviously NOT entranced by the prose. I hope they wrote a good reference to go with the Final Pay.

I really enjoyed meeting you at the grogblog - cheers.

[genevieve]

It's a corker, innit. I wonder what happens to the ones without names on them.
That was a good night indeed - lovely to meet you too, Brownie.

[R.H.]

That's funny about the manuscript. Years ago a pal of mine called His Majesty found a handbag on Flinders Street Station with about $200 in it. Next Sunday I met him at his stall in Camberwell flea market and his mother was there. As she was telling me what a cad he was for pocketing the dough he yelled from behind her, "And I've sold the handbag too." What a rotter, what a swine, almost as bad as the Marquis putting notes under Oscar's door.
Take care who you sue.

[genevieve]

My kids were disgusted some years back with a fellow student who took money from a wallet on the school bus and threw the hash stash he found therein out the window into the street. (Average age of children and peers: 9 years old). They felt he could at least have told the bus driver :)

[R.H.]

Genevieve, this is off topic, but if you're interested in writing, it's worth my time. Steve Drummond will get torn to pieces by "vanity box contributors" at sars, just for having an opinion contrary to theirs; but that's not the main thing. Take a look at his writing, compare it to theirs. See how clear it is, how straightforward.

Really, it's a delight.

[genevieve]

Robert, this is Steve Drummond of National Public Radio, is it? thanks for the tip off, I hope my small contribution to the vanity box is reasonable enough. If you can send me a link to something of his, I'd appreciate it.
(And yes, this is off topic - and the post we are discussing is here,
http://sarsaparillablog.net/?p=503#comment-160384). Freely confess, I do not know who the fellow is.

[R.H.]

I've never heard of him, but will admit to agreeing with what he's said, and to have been jolted by a dissenting view amongst so much love. Trying to comprehend what some of these other boffins are saying gives me a pain in the forehead. Why is everything they write a bloody thesis? Are they ever conversational? No, never. Goodness me. They write about fiction, but in ways that would put fiction readers to sleep. So what good are they, if commoners would avoid them? What use are they, if they're only useful to each other? And golly me, but it's nice to have pets -iteraters and contextualists, using ten words where three would do, but what the hell are they talking about?

Well maybe it don't matter.

[R.H.]

Your contributions, which are often unadorned, and sometimes against the flow, are evidence that a slingshot can outdo a machine gun burst.

[genevieve]

Aah, flattery will get you published every time :)
I think Mr Drummond is an education writer and broadcaster with the National Public Radio in the US - found one article by him which I will read later on. If it's the same guy, anyhow. Surprised he is reading Sars.

There's a really nice Princeton guide to poetics in the City Library which cuts a very clean (if sometimes slightly stuffy)path through a lot of contemporary criticism and theory of criticism, and also through some of the earlier stuff I missed when my brain was still growing. The pursuit of knowledge is a bit like jazz, it is not always about the straightest path between two points. Personally I enjoy the cut and thrust at Sars, it helps keep Alzheimer's at bay for a bit longer.

[R.H.]

And anyway, how do you tell the truth, without insulting millions.